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ARTICLE V.-THE FOLLY OF ATHEISM.*

"THE FOOL HATH SAID IN HIS HEART, THERE IS NO GOD.'" Ps. xiv, 1.

THE word "fool" commonly means, in the Bible, not a person actually devoid of reason, but one who, having reason, fails, through some wrong quality of character, to use it aright, but proceeds in his thinking or conduct in a way contrary to the dictates of a sound intelligence. There are two sorts of fools; first, natural fools, and secondly, fools from choice,or those who, from haste or conceit, or some evil inclination, occult it may be, are grossly misled in their opinions, or in their practical action. When, for example, we read in the Proverbs that "Judgments are prepared for sinners, and stripes for the back of fools;" and, in another place, "Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him," the allusion is plainly not to men whose native talents are below the average, and whose attainments of knowledge are small. Everything like contempt for inferiors of this class is utterly at variance with the spirit of Christianity. The pride of knowledge, like every other kind of pride, is rebuked in the Bible. But the allusion is to one who, while possessed of the attributes of a rational being, chooses, nevertheless, to adopt principles, or pursue lines of conduct, that are perfectly unreasonable. Even then, to call the brother "fool" in any bitter temper, to despise or to hate him for any cause, is forbidden in the Sermon on the Mount. Yet there is nothing to hinder us from designating folly, not passionately, but in a calm and sober way, by its true name. Not to tarry longer upon the explanation of words, I wish to speak of the folly of Atheism under two heads; first, the futility of the reasons that lead to it, and secondly,

*This Article consists of a Sermon, preached in the Chapel of Yale College, October 22, 1876. It is printed as it was delivered, with the addition of a few

notes.

the strength of the evidence for the being of God which it ignores.

Among the sources of Atheism, one is the fact that God is invisible. The remark has been attributed to La Place that, searching the heavens, he could not find God with his telescope. It is doubtful whether he ever said it. But whether he did or not, it indicates the spirit that often tacitly underlies theoretical and practical Atheism. God, when sought for as a visible object, cannot be found by traversing the sea, or exploring the sky, even if one pursued his journey to the farthest star. But what folly to conclude that God does not exist, because He is not visible! Men-unless you call the body the man-are not visible. The thinking principle, neither in yourself nor in others, have you ever seen. You may say that you are conscious of it in yourself. But how do you know that it exists in another-in the friend, for example, who sits at your side? You cannot see it all that you behold is certain manifestations, or phenomena, which reveal its unseen, mysterious presence. You may be in daily, intimate converse with another, but his soul ever remains invisible: for

"We are spirits clad in veils :

Man by man was never seen:
All our deep communing fails

To remove the shadowy screen."*

Why then disbelieve in God because you cannot see him? If through the look, the tone, the gesture of a man at your side you can behold, with the eye of faith, the invisible mind that resides within, the seat of thought and affection, why refuse to recognize the Supreme Intelligence, of whom it is true, as an Apostle has said, that "The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead ?" Atheism on the ground that we are now considering is espe cially foolish, because within the sphere of nature itself, invisible forces, some of them of vast power, are admitted to exist. They tell us that matter is composed of atoms: who has seen them? Who has seen the force of gravitation, and can paint a likeness of it? Who has beheld the subtle ether which, it

* From a poem of C. P. Cranch.

is believed, pervades all space? He who believes in nothing but what he, or somebody else has seen, will have a short creed. He must begin by denying the existence of any such thing as a power of thought or volition behind the actions and expressions of his fellow men. He must deny that he is endued with such a power himself. There is no need to go farther. When he has emptied the world of everything but brute matter, which can be weighed and clutched, he may, perhaps, logically reject God.

A second source of Atheism, is the notion that as far as second causes are brought to light, the first cause is excluded, or the notion that second causes are disconnected from God. In the Bible, we read, in a sentence that has hardly a parallel for beauty: "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth." Now suppose the nebular hypothesis, as broached by Herschel and La Place, to be true. Whether it be true or not, I cannot say: the astronomers have not yet made up their minds about it. But suppose it to be true. Then a homogeneous, nebulous matter diffused abroad in space, by a long process of attractions and repulsions, combinations and motions, solidified into the bodies and systems which now form the sidereal world. Does this rule out the sublime declaration of Scripture" by the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth?" Before attending to this question, let us turn for a moment to another illustration. A person, after a lingering illness, dies. The minister and the physician happen to be together. The minister says: "It has pleased God to terminate the life of our brother." "No," says the doctor, "he died of a fever." "You are wrong," replies the minister, "it is God-it is He that killeth and that maketh alive." "You are wrong," rejoins the other, "I have watched the progress of the fever from the beginning: such a fever seizing upon such a constitution can have no other issue." The one party falls back on religious conviction, and the testimony of the Bible; the other appeals to the obvious connection of antecedent and consequent. Now shall this unseemly wrangle between the minister and the doctor be dignified by the high-sounding name of "a conflict

between Religion and Science ?" In such a contest, both are right in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny. Let all the links of secondary causation be exposed as completely as possible, each of them bound to the one before and after it, it is not less true that, when life ends, it is God who brings it to an end. The instrument used does not exclude, it includes His agency. If a bird is shot by a rifle, it is a man still that kills the bird. Many appear to think that God is to be found, if found at all, only at the origin of things-the origin of matter, the origin of life, the origin of different species,―at crises, so to speak. But "He maketh His sun to rise"-daily maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." He is present with His agency in the course of nature not less really and efficiently than at the beginnings of nature. "Not a sparrow falls to the ground without your Father." We revert now to the question of the origin of the stellar universe. God is not less its author even if the material of which it is composed were carried through a succession of changes, reaching through a long series of ages. There is, to be sure, the origination of the material to be accounted for, with all its latent properties and tendencies. But God is presupposed not only at this initial stage, but at every subsequent movement, until the glorious work was consummated. "By the Word of the Lord"-by His will and in pursuance of His plan-" were the heavens made."

Science has for its business the investigation of second causes. Let it have a fair field. I sympathize with the resentment which the students of nature feel when the attempt is made to furnish them with conclusions beforehand. Their peculiar province is to unfold all the links of secondary causation-every nexus between antecedent and consequent-which they can ferret out. But the origin of things-I mean, the primary originand the end, or design, it belongs to philosophy, in the light of Revelation, to define. The man of science may, also, be a philosopher; and he may not be.* The particular fallacy, however,

* It is a remark of Archbishop Whately, to be found somewhere in his Biography, and a remark characteristic of his sagacity, that science has nothing to do with religion. If I ask a man of science for the origin of an eclipse, it is not for

which I would here point out is the false and unauthorized assumption that where secondary causation begins, divine agency ceases, and that as far as secondary causation extends, divine agency is excluded. How much nobler is the conception of the Bible, in the New Testament as well as in the Old! It is God by whom the lilies of the field are clothed with beauty. The fowls of the air-it is your Heavenly Father that feedeth them!

A third particular in which Atheism demonstrates its folly is in the assumption that the laws of nature-or the uniformity of nature's laws-excludes God. Must there be then a break -discord where there is order—to prove that God reigns? Is there no God, because there is a reign of law? Imagine that in the room of the universal sway of law, there were a jumble of events, no fixed relation of antecedent and consequent; in a word, chaos. Would there be more or less evidence of a God than there is now? It is because nature is an orderly system, that the universe is intelligible, and science possible. This very aspect of nature shows that the head of the universe is an intelligent being. Miracles would not be credible, if they were, as some suppose them to be, anti-natural. Though not the mere effect of nature, they harmonize with it, as parts of a more comprehensive system.* What a strange idea that for the heavens to declare the glory of God, it is necessary that the planets should leap out of their orbits, instead of keeping their appointed path with unfaltering regularity! We count it the perfection of intelligent control, when the railway train reaches its destination, day after day, at the same appointed moment.

him, that is, not for him in his character as a man of science, to answer that God caused it. This I knew before. His function is to explain the antecedents which constitute the ground on which the event can be predicted. What is true of an eclipse is true of everything else in nature. With respect to the origin of man, it is perfectly legitimate, it is, in fact, the proper function of the scientific man, to find out the mediating process-if there was one -- in his creation.

* Miracles surpass the capacities of nature. But, as Augustine long ago affirmed, the ordinary operations of nature are just as truly from God, as are miraculous phenomena; and those operations would be just as marvelous, were we not familiar with them, as any miracle can be. What marvel greater than every new-born child? But the point made above is that miracles have their law-their rationale-as parts of the divine plan.

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